Seven years ago, most of these children had no food, no home, no family, no school. Abandoned or neglected by their own, they had nowhere to go to, no one to look up to. Tamizh Muni Edwin changed it all for them. Today, they smile and share a sense of optimism and community. They all look healthy and are totally self-driven to become good human beings.
I met six of them – Tulima, Vijithai, Mahilama, Rajesh, Rishima and Mahilarasan, all Eighth graders, who insist on doing a small puja before sitting down for the chat. They have 19 more friends at the Maa Manithap Palli School of Holistic Education in Kallandhiri Village in Alagarkoil.
The session rolls on chirpily as they tell me how the four huts inside the one acre rented campus function as classrooms during the day and double up as the Inbavanam Home by night.
These children are either orphans or come from BPL, broken or socially discriminated families whose education and health is now fully taken care of, says Edwin, the founder of the school-cum-orphanage. He admitted 50 abandoned children from 15 different districts of Tamil Nadu in the first year when he registered the Gurukula Oli Social Educational and Public Charitable Trust in 2007.
When he brought them, most of them were underweight and also first time learners in their families. But Edwin is a dreamer. Triple M.A in Sociology, Commerce and Law and a student activist who joined every radical social movement of the early and mid-80s, he believes social transformation is possible if every individual chooses to “travel inward”.
The birth of his daughter after seven years of marriage opened his eyes to a child’s needs and requirements. “My mind started working on packages that would make a child emit only positivity and care for wellness of mankind,” he says.
Edwin identified 360 areas of skill development and learning in the quest for knowledge. With help and support from local partners and friends, NGOs and the Government’s Sarva Siksha Abihyan, he launched the residential school scripting a different kind of story.
Different it is because in this school the children are allowed to learn their way with no pressure of following subject-wise time table. They have a say in what they do, they are respected for what they are. It they want to study science in the afternoon, so it is. If they want to skip mathematics, they are allowed to. But within this freedom, they are disciplined and creative.
The 12 girls and 13 boys at present are distributed into small active classes from I to VIII and follow the State syllabus with the help of seven qualified teachers, who either render their services free or are paid very minimal. Professionals volunteer on weekends to prepare the children for advanced and higher skills and other course works.
The children wake up at the crack of dawn and start their day by reading biographies of great leaders. This is followed by an hour’s yoga and music class each. Between 8.30 and 12.30 p.m., the children study the syllabus prescribed subjects as per their mood and choice.
Learning happens at their pace and at their level, asserts Edwin.
He reserves their afternoons and evenings for activities including song composition, story or poetry writing, drawings, sculpting and crafts, riddles and quiz, gardening or dance and games and sports.
He boasts of national champions in karate and state champions in swimming. He has also taught the students about building construction and how to make products like soaps, oils, candles and other items.
“I want them to be independent and self-sufficient. I am helping them to learn how to do things because the real aim of this school is to teach thoughtfulness and kindness to others and evolve into responsible citizens,” he adds.
By delivering such a defying curriculum, Edwin hopes to bridge the chasm between what children enjoy and value in their lives and what they actually need to learn in life.
He calls it connected learning. “The holistic education that I am providing is connected to the children’s lives with a purpose and with relevance to the real world outside,” he says.
With not many buyers of his idea yet, for Edwin everyday is still a struggle. His wife, Helen, is a Government school teacher and fully supports him because she too believes that the authentic engagement of the children and their riveting educational experience make learning irresistible. Both now dream of getting the high school sanctioned first and later establishing a children’s university.
“The children now come up with ideas themselves in a way that they enjoy the most. And that is what makes all the difference and learning effective,” the couple adds.
(Making a difference is a fortnightly column about ordinary people and events that leave an extraordinary impact on us. E-mail soma.basu@thehindu.co.in to tell her about someone you know who is making a difference)
